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  • Infants strangled in murder-suicide
  • By Duncan Macfarlane and Rory Callinan
  • The Australian
  • 27/04/2004 Make a Comment
  • Contributed by: admin ( 100 articles in 2004 )
ABOUT 4.30pm on Sunday former One Nation candidate Jayson Dalton called his father and told him he was preparing his babies for a "long sleep".

The horror of those words became clear two hours later when police broke into his Brisbane home and found Dalton, his one-year-old daughter Jessie, and 13-week-old son Patrick dead in the front room.

Dalton, 32, had strangled them both.

No one knows how the former diesel fitter and aspiring politician justified his actions to himself. But a pile of documents in the passenger seat of the car in the driveway of his Kelvin Grove home told some of the story.

One thick wad of papers came from the Family Court where Dalton was fighting a bitter battle with estranged wife Dionne for custody of the children. Ms Dalton was in hospital under heavy sedation last night.

A letter from his mortgagee the ANZ Bank had the words "dishonoured" emblazoned on it, and a third piece of paper carried the painted handprints of his children.

The Daltons separated two months ago, and she had taken out a domestic violence order after he threatened to kill her. He had also threatened business operators near the door-handle shop he ran with his wife. A nearby store owner described Dalton as a "very forceful type of fellow" and another said he had a "short and violent temper".

After he separated from his wife, Dalton found himself embroiled in a legal system he had campaigned hard against.

In the 1998 federal election Dalton stood against maverick MP Bob Katter for the seat of Kennedy in north Queensland and won 19 per cent of the vote.

NSW MP David Oldfield, who co-founded One Nation, said Dalton organised a trip for then party leader Pauline Hanson down the Mt Isa mine where he worked.

"He was a young fellow who didn't really know much about politics but he tried very hard," Mr Oldfield said.

"When I knew him he was a hard-working nice young man.

"What he's done now is inconceivable to me."

Dalton campaigned heavily on Family Law reform and changes to the child support agency.

After he failed to unseat Mr Katter, Dalton moved with his wife to Brisbane.

Three years later they both stood as independents against Premier Peter Beattie for the seat of Brisbane, once again campaigning on family law reform.

In the same year, Dalton won an all-expenses-paid, one-week trip to Thailand from the clothing chain Colorado, including a new wardrobe and $2000 spending money.

When she arrived at the Kelvin Grove home on Sunday night, Ms Dalton was distraught and collapsed on the footpath. She remains in hospital under heavy sedation.


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